WINNIPEG – Manitoba will soon have only two major chicken processing plants.
Officials at Friendly Family Farms, based in Steinbach, Man., announced the plant is closing sometime next year. The plant has processed chicken and turkey for more than 30 years. It also has three chicken farms and a hatchery, which will continue operating.
“Basically, we’re phasing out of the poultry processing business and we’re going to concentrate on the farming side of the business,” said spokesperson Marshall Freed.
Freed would not elaborate on why the processing end of the plant would be closing.
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Cornie Friesen, chair of the Manitoba Chicken Producer Board, said the closure won’t affect producers in the short term, noting the other two chicken processing plants – Dunn-Rite Food Products and Granny’s Poultry Co-operative – run only one eight-hour shift per day.
“If one of these plants would decide to go to a double shift, they can handle the product that this plant left behind,” Friesen said.
“It’s too bad that this plant will be closing down, because in the future, we will need it,” he added.
Don Keith, of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, said more than 140 people worked at the plant. They will be laid off in three phases over the next six months.
Keith said the announcement was not a complete surprise to employees: Their collective agreement expired in the spring, but negotiations were put on hold.
